D'you reckon I did myself permanent damage? 3.5g in June + earlier foolishness.

[ShroomingBalls]

Hi!

Super long post, but I've bolded the key bits. If you can't be arsed to read any of it, it'd be good to know if you think any long term damage can come from: overheating, mdma usage in general.

In the past couple of weeks or so I've been having episodes of palpitations, very fast heart rate, and chest tightness/pain. A couple of the episodes have been brought on by smoking weed, and they kind of begin with a weird, almost gurny jaw feeling and neck prickling. They may well be anxiety related, I have been under stress recently, and they certainly freak me out a bit, but I'm not sure if I can rule a more physiological origin out. Now, I've had palpitations before (especially when taking modafinil+coffee+nicotine earlier this year), and I'm getting checked out for heart arrhythmias of a more general cause. I have quite a lot of theoretical physiology knowledge, but I wanted to get some opinions from people with more anecdotal experience, especially because doctors in general are so clueless about drugs.

I started using MDMA early this year, and have used about 10 times in total (crystal). No dose has been tested, but they come from quite reliable sources and I've always used with very experienced friends who I feel would recognize drugs of a different character.

In about 3.5 weeks in June, I took MDMA 7 times (a couple of which involved psychedelics too - shrooms and 4-HO-MiPT). Apart from one occasion (amicably spiked towards the end of a trip), I pre-loaded extensively - high dose time released vitamin C, vitamin E, ALA, CoQ-10, grapeseed extract, green tea extract. This preloading helped hugely, and when I did it best I felt incredible the next day, an afterglow rather than a comedown. There were a couple of days when I used back to back, and after the final party (MD, MD+shrooms) I did have progressively worse headrushes on standing up (worst one involving bad vision loss, falling, arms shaking uncontrollably).

I think that they were probably just an effect of a weekend of eating and drinking little. I did also have a couple of days of brain zaps after the final party, but I took 5htp, ate bananas, and they stopped after a while. It seems like they're just a normal side effect of heavy MDMA usage, SSRI withdrawal syndrome type thing. After this, I felt pretty fucking good (especially in the afterglow of the shroom trip), but maybe a little bit physically rocky. I had the first episode of racing pulse a couple of weeks afterwards.

Apart from the general usage, there are a couple of instances that specifically I'd like to know if I could see any consequences from:

1. (in April) I stupidly preloaded with 500mg L-tyrosine (dopamine precursor) and 100mg 5HTP, before dropping about 0.2, perhaps a little more. It was also the night after I finished 36 hours awake (had had 7 hours sleep after this), and I probably still had a little bit of modafinil in my system from the previous day, but that said I am no stranger to sleep deprivation, and can normally power through. I came up really hard, and threw up. After that I felt suddenly exhausted, like I had to sit down or I would pass out - like, I sat on the floor for a bit outside the toilet while my friends went in. Right before I did sit down properly, my pulse was below 60. After 10 minutes of sitting with a friend I was fine, and danced for several hours (though the experience was pretty blunted, I now realise typically for 5htp preload).The comedown was terrible, worst I've experienced (think this was probably the L-tyrosine). Could this episode have been anything serious?

2. The last time I did MD in June was with shrooms. 2g of shrooms (lemontek) with a biggish bomb (bit more than 0.2) that dissolved in my mouth and hit me like a train. Overall the trip was great, but at a certain point I realised willpower was meaningless (lol), and charged around doing shit manically for maybe 90 minutes. I don't remember this well, but it ended with me either overheating from the exertion or being severely tripped out - my brother kept asking me if I was OK (he was tripping too, so hard to tell how bad I looked by this point). I remember gasping for breath and feeling like I was going to pass out. I dived into a cold shower, and chilled the fuck out for a bit, and then felt ok (ok enough to top up a few hours later). Is it possible that I overheated? If so, could it have done me any permanent damage?

Sorry for the HUGE post, but I thought I'd include all the details. Like I said, if anyone has anecdotal experience that relates to this, and could give me any insight as to whether or not I might have done myself any permanent damage, I'd be super grateful.

Cheers guys

 

[MagickalKat777]

First off, welcome to Bluelight.

Second, I have to say that you are exhibiting the same signs I did before I ended up with full-blown panic disorder, right down to the weed causing increased anxiety (it never used to do that to me) and the physical symptoms.

There is very little evidence of permanent damage but I would stop doing drugs now and let yourself recover before you end up in the nightmare that so many of us have found ourselves where we are trapped for years in cycles of anxiety, depression, derealization, depersonalization, panic attacks, insomnia and many other things. It sounds like you are on the edge where you can either slow down and recover completely or keep going and fall off the edge and join us in hell.

To answer 1) if it was serious, you would have been in the hospital. It sounds like you just had too much going on in your system and got overloaded. 2) Overheating is very common on MDMA when you don't have adequate hydration or ventilation so this is definitely possible and yes, MDMA-induced hyperthermia can be dangerous and has caused fatalities in the past.

First thing is first - I would stop doing drugs for awhile and let yourself recover. Everyone is different but with your usage, I'd say 6 to 9 months should be adequate, I wouldn't do less than 6 months.

Second, start testing everything. Test kits are a small price to pay to get the peace of mind that you're not taking garbage. Never rely on someone else's impressions, they may not know any better as well.

Third, try to avoid taking supplements on or around days when you do decide to partake of a substance, especially a releaser like MDMA. They often hurt so much more than they help and some of the reactions can be downright dangerous.

 

[ShroomingBalls]

Thanks for a really complete reply

That sounds like good advice, re: the panic disorder. I have had severe generalised anxiety in the past (peaked 7 years ago probably), and many many years of depression too. To be honest I feel like this year has been a huge step out of that state, with drugs a part of it. I have stopped the meditation that was so helpful in the last three months, and I think therefore that the anxiety thing may fit better, which is reassuring medically speaking.

[As an aside, I'm sure you know more about this than me as meditation and drugs seem to go hand in hand, but if you haven't, I'd recommend trying sitting meditation (headspace.com is an especiallly good course); for me at least the whole mindfulness thing helped me climb out of a very dark place in a way I didn't think would be possible. Having said that, it seems ludicrous I ever stopped.]

Your answers to 1 and 2 make a lot of sense. D'you think the fact that I cooled myself down pretty efficiently, with wet clothes, before I felt much ill effect means that I'm unlikely to see permanent effect? (even if it was just a shroomy panic attack).

On the last point though - I think some supplemenents are a terrible idea (preloading with precursors is just dangerous, say), but are you arguing against an anti-oxidant (CoQ-10, ALA, vitamin C, vitamin E, grapeseed extr, green tea extr.) preload? I've done it multiple times and, as a neuroscience/medical student, see both theoretical and anecdotal benefits. That said, I do think some people see supplements as 'safe' because they're 'just supplements', in the same way that different gruops of people lump all 'drugs' as 'bad'...

edit: and yes, I'm going to order a test kit asap, was an idiot not to!

 

[MagickalKat777]

MDMA is not really something that anyone with a tendency to be anxious should be using. Monoamine releasers are much more likely to intensify any underlying anxiety problems and make them significantly worse versus 5-HT2A agonists. I never had a panic attack no matter what psychedelics I was doing (even 5-MeO-AMT which put my resting pulse to 170-180 didn't scare me as much as it should have) but as soon as I started doing MDMA, the problems became apparent in a very short period of time. Had I stopped, I probably wouldn't be in this situation but I didn't stop and even worse, went on to abuse mephedrone so... Here I am not having touched a drug besides alcohol and my prescribed benzos since 2011 and I'm still in hell.

Also, I have lost my ability to meditate. I used to meditate from the time I was 10 but trying to do so now results in some nasty panic as I become aware of the things that are going on in my body that I normally ignore to keep my anxiety at bay. I definitely did a number on some receptors, definitely seems like its a combination, not just serotonin or GABA.

If you were going to see damage from the hyperthermia, you would have already experienced it. The damage is pretty immediate and involves nastiness like seizures and coma when its at the dangerous level.

Supplements tend to interfere with the drug that you're taking. Some of them can definitely potentiate the experience but for the most part, supplements will blunt an MDMA experience, in particular 5-HTP and vitamin C are known for doing this.

 

[ShroomingBalls]

That must be awful. To be honest I've found MDMA quite therapeutic, especially in terms of reconnecting with a moment through experience rather than stepping back behind your eyes and frantically analysing everything, but that's my fortunate experience only.

I can somewhat relate to the loss of ability to meditate, if only in an acute way - when I was freaking out with a racing pulse there was no way that I could focus on my breathing without being crushingly aware of my heartbeat. I'm sure that you indeed did screw up your receptors. If I've taken one thing from studying neuroscience, though, it's that the brain is surprisingly, amazingly, plastic, on an every day basis. Obviously that means that every bit of anxiety makes you better at worrying, but I also think that even the most ingrained circuits can be reset, or abolished, or worked around with enough of the right sort of therapy (I mean this as a general term). Anyway, naive neuroscientists are only useful to a point, and ymmv. Good luck, and thanks for the advice.

 

[MagickalKat777]

Yeah MDMA starts off being very therapeutic but that character changes quickly with abuse. It can be a great tool - up until you cross the threshold of going too far. That threshold is different for everyone but you're expressing symptoms that seem to show that you're about to cross it yourself. The bridge burns behind you so the only way to come back is to build a whole new one and you don't end up back where you were before everything went south completely.

And that's exactly what happens when I try to meditate now - my heartbeat that I normally ignore becomes very pronounced and then its a race to the top after that... so I don't even try anymore.

I know that I can reverse the damage with time but its killer. I honestly wish I had listened to my friend who advised me that I needed to stay away from MDMA because of my tendencies to go overboard with drugs. Very wise girl. But I was far too stubborn to listen.

 

[ShroomingBalls]

Well, thank you very much for sticking around on the other side to warn people. I'll give it a rest for a while, and hopefully nothing is up with my heart.

Have you thought about walking meditation? I find it very difficult to even take my pulse when walking. Just a thought.